PROCESS:
I have never done any sort of sculpture before, especially not with found objects, but it only seemed fitting to use objects from the industry to portray aspects of the industry. Throughout my process, I got to thinking about how the model of the food industry is where the toxicity comes from. I thought about how my boss is fucked over just as much as I am. And that customers don’t receive the authentic human-to-human interactions they deserve. I thought about how I feel so much like a robot in the kitchen, an objectified, disposable, robot. As I walked around the kitchen, collecting my medium, I thought about how I am no different from these tools.  

ARTIST STATEMENT:
After several years in the restaurant industry, I can tell you it refuses. The model of the industry refuses authenticity. It refuses patience. It refuses equity and justice and understanding. The model is constrained in a way that refuses humanness and necessitates apathy and numbness and hierarchy.  
I don’t believe it is anyone’s fault. I believe the employees, bosses, and customers alike are consistently failed by the systems, the model, the institution.  
I have been failed by this model time and time again. My identity as a line cook has been dehumanized to a tool. I am a tool that can be overworked, abused, and neglected—especially as a non-binary femme person in a man-dominated industry.  
The food industry is also beautiful. It brings people together. The accumulation, preparation, and distribution of food has the capacity to revolutionize, which is why I continue to put myself through the hardships—the light of the work shines so brightly.  
The image has notions of time, identity, hierarchy/power, (T)truth, and beauty, all aspects we discussed in class. I hope to portray my relation to these things both directly and symbolically.